


Worries go down better with soup

by aryastark_valarmorghulis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canon Compliant, Dinner, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, OotP Era, POV Sirius Black, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27957545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryastark_valarmorghulis/pseuds/aryastark_valarmorghulis
Summary: An evening in Grimmauld Place.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 42
Kudos: 136





	Worries go down better with soup

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my wonderful Beta [maraudorable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentthunder/pseuds/maraudorable).

Being the doorman and, when Mundungus lingers a bit too long, the bouncer of the Order of the Phoenix has its perks, especially after the third glass of Firewhisky. 

Thoughts and worries blur, fuzzy at the edges, lose the sharp bite of pain that memories always carry nowadays, and Sirius almost –  _ almost  _ – manages to trick his mind into believing that at least, if he’s confined to opening the door and playing host, he won’t get anyone killed this time. 

Sirius downs the last sip of Firewhisky, which sadly doesn’t even burn anymore, its malted flavour gliding down his throat smoothly. Being able to drink is an improvement on Azkaban at least, he decides, even if he recalls – now with a hint of nostalgia – the previous two years spent on the run. One knows he’s truly buggered when he misses the time spent eating rats and sleeping in forests and caves, hunted by Dementors and Aurors alike. 

Being haunted by Kreacher and his mother’s portrait is merely a different kind of strain, the kind that only people born here might understand, the ones who breathed the malicious magic hovering in every room and carved in the stones this house was built with. Regulus might have got it on some level – and of course he would have dismissed Sirius’ intolerance with his stoic attitude. 

Sirius leans his head on the sofa’s backrest, closes his eyes so he doesn’t see the gloomy shadows of the night reaching out to him with long black fingers. He has been thinking about his brother since this afternoon, when, hungover and just woken up, his socked feet stepped on something in the third floor’s hallway: a tiny oval frame, Regulus blinking up at him disapprovingly, short hair parted neatly, clad in a pristine green Quidditch uniform. It was probably one of Kreacher’s stolen prizes, destined to shine in his little shrine of old relics in the basement; Sirius tossed it in the first drawer he found, but his mind keeps returning to it at the oddest moments. 

“Would Master like another bottle of Firewhisky?”

Sirius groans and actually considers leaving the house, whipped by a sudden gust of wind and freedom, and if the Aurors find him, well, maybe he’d fight them, but this time he wouldn’t let them catch him alive. Being confined with this wretched creature in this awful house would tether anyone on the edge of morbidity. 

And then, a discernible whisper: “Master is nothing but a traitorous bastard, oh, if my poor Mistress could see him in this state, a pig, a murderer, a stinking drunkard –”

“Master would  _ love  _ not to see your face again, at least for tonight,” Sirius says sharply. “And be grateful I’m not drunk enough to cut off your tongue or something equally painful.”

Sirius opens his eyes just in time to witness Kreacher muttering nonsense while bowing down in a ridiculous curtsy and Disapparating with a loud crack, surely headed upstairs to cry and wipe his nose on one of his mother’s old cloaks, or something equally insane. It appears everyone who lives in this house dies young or lives long enough to turn mad – Sirius is still unsure about which is actually the worst outcome.

He has absolutely nothing to do except wait for the night to waste into day and for the day to fade into another night and for the night to become the next day; some people – Snape-shaped people, maybe – would assume he got good at it in Azkaban, but he didn’t. He only survived, but how long can someone survive on vengeance and rage? 

The corner of his mind that sometimes speaks with a soothing, low, Welsh-accented voice would remind him, in an annoyingly mild tone, that he has Harry to look after. And then the voice would add, after a pause and an embarrassed cough, that he has  _ other  _ people, too, without clarifying who those are because the owner of this familiar voice is clearly a bit of a coward, even if he’s sometimes right. 

And then a horrible, ear-splitting screech jolts him out of his reverie.

_ Bugger all.  _ Sirius leaps to his feet in a way that makes him realise he’s far less drunk than he reckoned and runs down the stairs two steps at a time until he reaches the entrance hall. 

“Filth! Scum! You befoul the house of my fathers –”

He pulls the worm-eaten curtains with all his strength, the shabby, crumbling velvet magically resisting under the strain. “Shut up!” 

The curtains give in, just an inch, and then Remus rushes in from nowhere and grabs the other side.

“ _ You! _ ” Walburga screams, her eyes wide and terrible. “Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!”

“ _ Shut. Up! _ ” Sirius yells, and suddenly the curtains shiver and surrender, closing shut, Walburga’s muffled voice still echoing in the hallway.

Remus sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, I tried to be quiet and I was quite sure I didn’t wake her up,” he says. 

Sirius takes a good look at him, takes in his red-rimmed eyes and lines around his mouth, his fraying cloak and boots speckled with mud. _I_ _missed you_ , he wants to say. “You look terrible,” he says instead. 

“You look like a retired rock star,” Remus replies, with his usual vague smile that could mean anything or nothing at all. “We haven’t tried destroying the wall yet, have we?”

“Ah, well, Moody and I have, but there are Dark Curses etched on the stone… He recommended leaving it as it is for now.” 

“The good old Silencing Charm it is, then,” Remus says, and waves his wand at the now closed curtains. Too bad it’s only a temporary Charm. 

Remus rubs at his tired eyes and takes off his dirty, crinkled cloak, tossing it on the coat rack, the one that’s actually made of wood and not on severed elves’ heads.

“Busy day?” Sirius turns his back to him and starts to climb the stairs, hoping to conceal the envy that must be clearly written on his face. He can almost feel the sharpness of Remus’ gaze, like pins and needles dancing on neck, as the stairs creak and groan under their steps, and he ignores it. 

“Oh, just the usual,” Remus replies, a few steps behind. “We followed Nott in some Merlin-forsaken ruins, swarming with Dementors – I’m telling you, they’re planning something big – and then we ended up in a marsh with a few Red Caps, hence the state of my cloak… It was my turn to report to Moody but Tonks insisted on doing it herself, so. I’m back.”

As soon as they’re in the living room again, Sirius flops down on the sofa, observing Remus with the corner of his eye; he always diligently reports to Sirius everything that happens whenever he’s away for the Order, sometimes even unprompted, as if sharing everything now will atone for whatever guilt he carries from over a decade ago. The funny wonders of Remus: he tries to mend old, by now healed wounds, but he doesn’t acknowledge the night they spent together this summer, less than two months ago. 

“So, what food do we have?” Remus opens and closes the pantry and then the fridge in the kitchen Sirius can see from the living room. 

“I wouldn’t know, would I? Haven’t got the chance to go grocery shopping lately,” Sirius replies, more sharp and bitter than he wanted. “We can always eat Kreacher… Could be poisonous, though.” 

He meant it as a joke, but Remus turns to shoot him a  _ look _ , which seems far more effective now than when he was nineteen. “At least you’re not short on Firewhisky,” is all he says, but it’s more than enough to convey a lot. Worry, disappointment, maybe even pity: the very last things Sirius wants from him. 

“And you haven’t seen the secret stock I keep in my room,” Sirius adds. He almost says  _ you used to drink a whole lot more than me _ , but then he doesn’t – Remus never drinks more than a half glass of wine or a Butterbeer while he’s eating, and this summer he said some vague stuff about addiction that seemed to confirm that he hadn’t exactly had a cheerful time in the last decade. 

Remus doesn’t reply but he points his wand to the floor and a Bluebell Flames fire starts to crackle happily, casting pretty blue lights in the otherwise dark room. A pot – one of Molly’s – levitates midair and goes to fill itself at the sink, while tomatoes, carrots, celery sticks and an onion roll over until they run into a set of knives. Sirius remembers fondly a time where all Remus could cook were sandwiches, but maybe he can think back fondly on this, too, next time Remus is away. 

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Remus rummages in his pocket and throws something in his direction, and Sirius doesn’t realise what it is until a crumpled pack of cigarettes hits him on the chest and falls in his lap. “For you. You said you wanted to smoke.”

“I did.” Sirius tears it open and places a fag between his lips, his other hand stretched out to grab his wand placed on the coffee table. “Thank you so much, Moony, you’re the best.” He immediately lights his first cigarette in fourteen years with the tip of his wand and inhales.  _ Bliss _ . He probably even moans out loud without realising, because he hears Remus chuckling, a warm, beloved sound, another underserved treat after decades of abstinence. 

“You know, you could help me set the table when your erotic encounter with smoking is over,” Remus says. 

“Don’t worry, it’s been fourteen years, I’ll be done in a second,” Sirius jokes, and their eyes lock for a moment through the white puffs of smoke. A sudden ache to hold Remus’ hunched shoulders and to stroke his greying hair and kiss his scarred wrists and other parts overcomes him; it took Sirius exactly one day that summer to discover that everything that made Remus helplessly lovely was still there, hidden behind the mountains of the past. 

Sirius waves his fingers distractedly and two drawers open, a faded tablecloth and cutlery twirling in the air before settling on the oak table. Remus arches an eyebrow in surprise and Sirius tries not to think about his wounded pride. 

“I still know how to do magic, you know,” Sirius says. “Even if I only get to use it to clean and to Stupefy Kreacher.”

At this, Remus actually huffs and crosses his arms. 

“I’m just kidding, Moony, relax,” Sirius says, before Remus can raise any objection. “Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but I didn’t do anything to that wicked creature.”  _ Yet _ .

“I know, I know… I trust you,” Remus says, quickly. That’s the kind of Moony-answer that puts an end to every conversation now, and the three words that Remus so easily says lately. 

Sirius joins him in the kitchen and fills two glasses with pumpkin juice while Remus serves the soup into two bowls and adds slices of toasted bread. It smells delicious and Sirius smiles; dinner is served, the blue fire crackles happily at their feet, Moony is here and soon Harry will be, too, and all the Weasleys as well. 

“Let’s eat,” Remus says, and they do, enjoying their soup – “Not bad, by the way, Moony” – and each other’s company in silence. 

After clearing the table, Sirius moves back to the sofa to smoke another fag. “Do you want one?” he offers. Remus sits next to him, a copy of _ Magick Moste Evil  _ on his lap. 

“I quit,” he replies, but a glimpse of amusement shines through his eyes and he takes the offered fag between his scarred fingers, lighting it up wandlessly. Usually, it would be the moment when they play the  _ do you remember  _ game, which starts out fondly and can end up with both of them sad or flirting or, more frequently, both things combined. Tonight Sirius presses his warm thigh against Remus’, and he remembers the countless times it started like this and then nothing happened, but he remembers much better the times everything happened – the last one, only two months ago. 

“This is nice,” Remus says, after a while. 

For someone fluent in Remus-ish, this is pretty much a love declaration, so Sirius leans in and kisses him, tasting the warmth and the smoke and the love on his lips. For now, it might even be enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://aryastark-valarmorghulis.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
